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<title>ceramics as thermal insulators and poor conductors by dopekanna</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29430462">ceramics as thermal insulators and poor conductors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dopekanna/pseuds/dopekanna'>dopekanna</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Body Horror, M/M, Not Beta Read, Soulmate-Identifying Marks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:33:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29430462</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dopekanna/pseuds/dopekanna</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first words you say to your soulmate are tattooed somewhere on your skin.</p>
<p>When Sasori turned himself into a puppet, he carefully skinned the words off his left wrist and tucked them besides his heart.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Naruto AU Week 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ceramics as thermal insulators and poor conductors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, danna, show me your words again, un!” Deidara asked as he burst into Sasori’s operating room.</p>
<p>“Must you see them now? I’m busy,” Sasori said, spinning his head a complete 180 degrees with an unsettling ceramic click. His hands kept on moving, dissecting the body in front of him and removing the undesired organs for his latest work of art.</p>
<p>“It’s very important, un.” Deidara cradled Sasori’s eternally young face with his hands. The mouth on his right palm pressed a chaste kiss to the puppet’s cheek.</p>
<p>“Very well.” Sasori set down the surgical scalpels and turning the rest of his body completely towards Deidara. He opened his cloak, the Akatsuki standard uniform, and popped out his flesh core from his immortal clay chest. He held it out to Deidara.</p>
<p>“Well, you know what to do,” Sasori said, bored. Deidara took the canister from Sasori, letting the heat coming off it gently warm his hands. Here was the heart and soul of Sasori of the Red Sand, his infuriating partner in crime, his beloved soulmate. He popped open the top of the canister hatch and looked inside at the beating heart and the sliver of skin folded and tucked beside it. He didn’t take it out though, not yet.</p>
<p>“Is my heart really that fascinating?” Sasori huffed, folding his arms.</p>
<p><a id="_GoBack" name="_GoBack"></a> “Yes, it is, un,” Deidara said. No one else on the planet would be able to hold his heart like this; Sasori, or any shinobi, would normally never allow such vulnerability. And yet he who could combust the organ right then and there with the palms of his hands, was privy to it. For all his work trying to prove otherwise, Sasori was still as human as Deidara was. The blond man picked the patch of skin out from the canister with his right hand, gingerly, as if it were gold leaf, and read the words still printed clear as day on it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Your ‘eternal’ puppetry isn’t real art! Art is an explosion!</em>
</p>
<p>Deidara snickered at the fond memories of that meeting in that Wave town in the middle of nowhere, and the ensuing fight. There was so much property damage; one of his finest works yet, if he did say so himself. He carefully twirled the skin around his fingers and opened his right palm, reading the words that circled the mouth in the center.</p>
<p>
  <em>Art is eternal, you trigger-happy brat! There isn’t any beauty in breaking things.</em>
</p>
<p>“I’m still right,” Sasori said, rolling his eyes when he read the words on his lover’s hand again.</p>
<p>“Of course, danna,” Deidara drawled in disbelief, but despite their different artistic visions, Deidara respected Sasori’s work. The words on his palm were a reminder of that respect. Deidara frowned; shinobi weren’t nice, couldn’t afford to be nice, but years after their first fateful meeting he sometimes still wished his first words had been kinder. On this they agreed: love was both and neither a moment and eternal.</p>
<p>He handed the heart canister back to Sasori, but not the words. Instead, he took the skin into his left hand.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” Sasori asked, looking between Deidara and the words in his hands. His partner didn’t answer except to untangle the skin in his left hand and hold his right palm next to it. The mouth on his right hand gently kissed the preserved flesh.</p>
<p>Sasori’s body rattled. “What…was that?” he asked, looking at his limbs in bewilderment. He hadn’t shivered in over two decades.</p>
<p>“I don’t know, un,” Deidara said, staring at Sasori. Rarely did he see his partner so surprised, especially in his primary body. “Are you alright?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, I think. My heart seems to be pumping a lot faster than normal though,” Sasori said, looking down at the canister. Deidara’s heart skipped a beat at the sudden thought of what Sasori might look like if he were blushing.</p>
<p>“Cute…” he whispered to himself.</p>
<p>“What was that?”</p>
<p>“Nothing! Nothing, here you go, let me put your words back,” Deidara said quickly, and he rushed to gently fold the skin and tuck it back into place besides Sasori’s heart. The puppet clicked shut the opening to the canister and pushed it back into the socket on his chest.</p>
<p>“Have your whims been satisfied? I have work to finish,” Sasori asked.</p>
<p>“Hm, almost, un,” Deidara leaned forward and pecked his partner’s ceramic lips with a quick kiss. He leaned back a few inches from Sasori’s best impression of a shocked face. “There, now I’m done.”</p>
<p>“We are in an operating room,” Sasori said blandly, “Who knows what’s gotten on my face.”</p>
<p>“I eat clay every day, danna, a few germs won’t kill me. And that didn’t stop you from taking out your heart,” Deidara said smugly. Sasori hadn’t reacted like that when he came in and kissed him – he was <em>flustered </em><span>now</span>.</p>
<p>“Tch, the things I do for love,” Sasori muttered.</p>
<p>“What was that, un?” Deidara asked with a grin that said he heard just fine.</p>
<p>“I said, ‘go wash your hand-mouth, it kissed formaldehyde.’”</p>
<p>“Not what I heard, but whatever you say, un,” Deidara said, smirking. He pecked his partner on the lips once more and sauntered out of the operating room. Sasori raised his hand to his lips when Deidara left his sight, brushing his unfeeling hands against what were supposed to be unfeeling lips.</p>
<p>“Interesting,” he murmured, remembering the sensation of <span>thin lips on ceramic</span> all over again, feeling it fade as quickly as his partner had left. He’d have to ask Deidara to replicate the scenario again. Multiple times, in fact; repeated trials were a necessary part of science, or so he had been told.</p>
<p>But that was for later. For now, he spun his body back towards the cadaver on the table - he had a puppet to make.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And that's a wrap folks!  Naruto AU Week isn't the first fandom event I've participated in, but it is the first one I wrote fanfiction for, and I had a lot of fun exploring all the different AUs.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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